


locked in

by nightswatch



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Locked In, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 22:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4763738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Enjolras and Grantaire pick up some donations, they end up getting stuck in a storage room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	locked in

**Author's Note:**

> (The plot of this is vaguely inspired by an episode of The OC.)

“Hurry up, they’re closing in ten minutes.”

Grantaire only huffed and speed-walked past Enjolras, grinning at him over his shoulder. “Try to keep up, Enjolras, they’re closing in nine minutes and fifty seconds.”

Enjolras sighed and followed at his heels. He’d been hoping that someone else would offer to help him out today, but everyone had had different plans already. They had to pick up a couple of donations, mostly clothes, maybe also a bunch of shoes, for their charity flea market a week from now and, sure, there wasn’t that much that could go wrong, this was pretty simple, actually, but it didn’t stop Grantaire from being terribly annoying either.

Grantaire had spent the past fifteen minutes making fun of him for being late; Enjolras had done his best not to strangle him and had kept his eyes on the road, only batting Grantaire’s hand out of the way when he’d tried to change the radio station.

The only good thing was that they really only had to pick up a few boxes and take them back to the Musain, where they’d be stashing all donations in the backroom. Then he could buy Grantaire a coffee to say thank you and go home straight after. Courfeyrac had suggested that he could always skip the coffee, but Enjolras always invited his volunteers for _something_ and he wouldn’t stop today just because Grantaire was a prick.

Grantaire did hold the door open for him, so maybe he’d decided not to be a complete ass today. Enjolras quickly walked over to checkout. The girl behind the counter smiled at him. “You’re Enjolras?”

“I am,” Enjolras confirmed. At least they hadn’t forgotten that he was coming by.

“I’m so sorry, we’ve had a really busy day, my colleague got sick, so I was the only one here and I didn’t have time to put all the donations into boxes, but it’s all in the back.” She beckoned them to follow her and took them to the back, where she opened a door that led into a small storage room that seemed to be mostly unused. “Everything in here is for you. Let me know if you need any help,” the sales assistant said and quickly vanished again.

“Thank you so much,” Enjolras called after her. “We’ll be quick.”

Grantaire walked in behind him and looked around with a frown. “That’s a lot of clothes.”

“Let’s just box it up, we can still sort through it all later,” Enjolras said. He peered into one of the half-full boxes and found a bunch of sweaters. “Sorry, this will probably take a little longer than expected.”

“It’s alright,” Grantaire muttered and started putting jeans into boxes. “I don’t have plans or anything.”

“You don’t?” So far he’d been convinced that Grantaire hardly spent an evening at his own apartment; he practically lived at the Musain. Whenever Enjolras decided to have dinner there or when Courfeyrac dragged him over after the evening class they had together, Grantaire was always there, either reading somewhere in the back or, when there weren’t too many customers around, leaning against the counter and talking to Louison. One time, when Enjolras had been on a particularly late coffee run, he’d even come across Grantaire drawing on the big blackboard behind the counter.

Grantaire laughed. “Nah, no one but me had time today, remember?”

“Right,” Enjolras said, although he was sure that Grantaire could have found someone to go out with if he’d only tried. Grantaire constantly waved and nodded at people wherever he went; he knew someone in every corner of the city.

“Anyway,” Grantaire said, carefully balancing a huge stack of shirts, “I’m not the only one who doesn’t have anywhere better to be.”

“I could have gone out with Combeferre.”

“To that science thing?” Grantaire asked. He dumped the shirts into one of the boxes. “Since when are you so interested in science?”

Enjolras shrugged. “I could have been interested in science for today.”

“Of course.”

“Apparently there was a lecture on dinosaur DNA and the possibility of Jurassic Park becoming a real thing.”

“Oh, come on,” Grantaire said. “He was totally fucking with you.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” Enjolras said and picked up another empty box. “Combeferre did seem pretty excited, though.”

“Combeferre gets excited about everything.” Grantaire laughed. “Oh my god...”

“What?” Enjolras turned around and found Grantaire holding up a complete nightmare of a dress.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Grantaire wiggled his eyebrows. “You know, not even Jehan would wear this. He’d run away screaming.”

“Bahorel might,” Enjolras said, his lips twitching. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether or not we sell everything, especially when it’s clothes. There are a bunch of shelters that will gladly take whatever is left over.”

“Why don’t we just give them all the clothes? Would be much easier.”

“Well, we’re not just selling clothes at the flea market.”

Grantaire hummed and stuffed the dress into a box. “At least they’re not all as bad.”

“That’s great, but do me a favor and don’t comment on each and every one of them, I really don’t want that poor sales assistant to get home late because of us.”

“Fine, I’ll stop frowning upon other people’s past fashion disasters.”

“Thank you,” Enjolras mumbled and picked up a bunch of skirts. After that it didn’t take them too long and they soon had all the boxes stacked up and ready to go.

“Do you think they have a cart we can borrow or something? Would be easier than carrying all those boxes back to the car one by one.”

“Let’s ask,” Enjolras said and went to open the door. But the door didn’t move an inch. “Um...”

“What’s wrong?”

Enjolras rattled at the door handle. “The door is stuck, I guess.”

“Wait, let me try,” Grantaire said and gently pushed Enjolras out of the way. He yanked at the door, but nothing happened. “Yep, it’s stuck.”

“Fantastic. Thanks for confirming that.” Enjolras sighed and knocked on the door. “Hello?”

“She probably can’t hear you.”

“You don’t say,” Enjolras grumbled. He sighed and sat down next to the door. “Well, she’ll come to check on us eventually, won’t she?”

“Yeah, I mean...” Grantaire sat down next to him and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “The store was supposed to close about twenty minutes ago.”

“You could just call the store,” Enjolras suggested. He handed Grantaire the piece of paper where he’d written down the store’s address and phone number. “Tell her that the door won’t open.”

Grantaire shrugged and unlocked his phone, then he groaned. “No reception. What about you?”

“I didn’t bring my phone, it’s still in the car.”

“Why didn’t you bring your phone?”

“Forgive me for not having the foresight to expect that we’d get stuck in a storage room.”

“Great,” Granaire muttered. “I jinxed it, didn’t I? When I said that I didn’t have anywhere to be tonight. I totally jinxed it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Enjolras said. He gave knocking another try, but to no avail. He watched as Grantaire started playing Candy Crush on his phone, watched as he played game after game, until he eventually gave Grantaire a nudge. “What time is it?”

Grantaire closed the game to check. “That’s weird.”

“Really weird,” Enjolras agreed. They’d been in here for nearly forty-five minutes and apparently it hadn’t occurred to the sales assistant that there was something very wrong because they still hadn’t emerged from this storage room. “Don’t you think... I mean, if you were her, would you have checked on us by now?”

“Definitely,” Grantaire said. He scrambled to his feet and tried to open the door one more time with the exact same result as before. “Hello? Is there anyone out there by any chance?”

Enjolras bit his lip. “What if she forgot about us?” he asked. He didn’t even want to think about what that would mean, but at this point it was pretty likely. The girl had said it herself, she’d had a stressful day, what if she hadn’t paid attention to whether or not they’d already left and had just locked up the store without checking if they’d actually gone home.

“Oh my god,” Grantaire only said. He kicked the door and winced. “I’m too young to die in a storage room together with you and that godawful dress. This is not the way I want to go.”

“What, do you think one of the sweaters is going to creep out of a box and strangle you?”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “This room is tiny, what if we run out of oxygen. Those windows don’t look like they open.”

Well, Grantaire was definitely right about that. Those windows in the back didn’t open and they were way too small for them to squeeze themselves through. “Okay, but you don’t suffocate in your shoebox of an apartment.”

“Good point,” Grantaire said. “Do you think I can kick the door in?”

“Looks pretty solid to me,” Enjolras said. He sat back down next to the door and patted the concrete floor next to him. “Maybe she’ll remember that she left us here.”

Grantaire groaned, but flopped down next to him again. “You didn’t bring snacks by any chance?”

Enjolras didn’t reply. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t have a sandwich hidden in the pockets of his jeans. He couldn’t really blame Grantaire for asking, though. He was hungry too. Enjolras had skipped lunch in favor of working on an article for the student paper and had only shoved a cereal bar into his mouth on his way to his afternoon class.

Grantaire at first only twiddled his thumbs, then he started tapping his foot, and eventually he stood up again, pacing back and forth. “I fucking jinxed it,” he muttered and pulled a shawl out of one of the boxes. “Do you wanna play dress up?”

“Put it back,” Enjolras said, trying not to laugh when Grantaire started winding the shawl around himself.

“I’m a burrito.” Grantaire spun around, nearly falling over in the process. He laughed and dropped the shawl back into the box only to pull out a ridiculous hat with bear ears. “This is great, I totally want it.”

“Well, feel free to buy it next weekend,” Enjolras said. He had to admit that the hat kind of suited Grantaire, as silly as it was.

“I will.” Grantaire grinned. “Set it aside for me, yeah?”

“Maybe you could just help us set everything up and you can set it aside by yourself,” Enjolras said gruffly. It wasn’t that Grantaire usually tried to get around helping at their events, he showed up just as often as everybody else did, but most of the time he ended up talking to random people instead of doing the work he was supposed to do.

“Fine, whatever,” Grantaire said. He put the hat back and wandered over to the window, trying to peer out into the alleyway behind the building, but it seemed that he wasn’t tall enough.

Enjolras stood up and joined him. “Here, I’ll...” He held out his arms and wrapped them around Grantaire to lift him up. It didn’t work as well as Enjolras had expected and he stumbled after only a second, Grantaire scrabbling at the wall before they both tumbled to the floor.

Grantaire groaned into Enjolras’ shirt before he sat up. “Fucking hell... You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Enjolras muttered. “Well, I guess that wasn’t the greatest idea.”

“Maybe we should try it the other way around,” Grantaire said and pulled Enjolras to his feet. He lifted him up as if he was light as a feather.

Enjolras peered out the tiny window and sighed. It was already getting dark and he couldn’t see much, but he was pretty sure that there were some houses back there – the lights were on in a few, but Enjolras couldn’t see any people.

“No one there?” Grantaire asked.

“Nope,” Enjolras mumbled, trying not to concentrate on how Grantaire let him slide back down very, very slowly. Because it was sort of– Enjolras quickly took a step back and straightened out his shirt. He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait.”

“I guess you’re right,” Grantaire muttered and sat back down next to the door. He pulled out his phone again and after what Enjolras assumed were two or three games of Candy Crush, he looked up again, frowning. “Are you gonna stand there all night?”

“No, I was just... thinking.” Not exactly about ways of getting out of here, but more about how fluffy Grantaire’s hair looked. Enjolras shook his head because that was really a strange thought to be having, especially right now. He sat down as well eventually. There wasn’t anything he could do anyway, because the sales assistant had most definitely forgotten all about them and it looked like they’d have to spend the night in this incredibly cozy storage room.

“She could have just put all of this stuff in their break room. You know, then we’d have snacks and maybe a coffeemaker and, if we were super duper lucky, maybe even a couch.” Grantaire turned off his phone. “Maybe we can build a nest with all those clothes.”

“Don’t you dare,” Enjolras grumbled. “Just sleep on your jacket or something.”

Grantaire muttered something under his breath and pulled up the hood of his jacket. He folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. Enjolras stared at the wall across from them, at the tiny windows, growing more and more tense once he started noticing that Grantaire was slowly but surely sinking down and eventually came to a rest with his head leaning against Enjolras.

And that was fine. Totally fine. Except that after a while Enjolras could barely feel his arm anymore, but he couldn’t just wake Grantaire up. He felt vaguely guilty, even though Grantaire had volunteered to come with him, Enjolras thought it was his fault that they were stuck here, because he was the one who’d been late earlier.

Grantaire murmured something and shifted even closer. Enjolras stomach gave a bit of a twinge and he was really starting to regret that he hadn’t had dinner. It did occur to him that the weird feeling in his stomach might not be the result of the dinner he hadn’t had, but he decided not to dwell on the thought, just like he always did. Instead he carefully moved his arm around Grantaire, hoping that it might stop feeling numb then.

Apparently Grantaire was a light sleeper. He immediately twitched and shot into an upright position, not without painfully bumping against Enjolras’ jaw.

“Ouch,” Enjolras said, rubbing his chin.

Grantaire inched away, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to... um, yeah. You seem to be a really good pillow.”

“That’s good to know,” Enjolras said lowly.

They spent a few more minutes complaining about how hungry and thirsty and tired they were, even though they both knew that there was absolutely nothing they could do about their current situation. The worst thing was that the idea of building a nest with those clothes suddenly started to seem like an appealing idea.

Enjolras stood up to stretch and started walking up and down the length of the room over and over again, Grantaire’s eyes following him all the while.

“Oh my god, just stop, you’re gonna wear a hole in the floor,” Grantaire said after a couple of minutes.

“Well, maybe then we’ll finally get out of here.”

Grantaire made a face. “Hilarious.” He started tapping his foot and Enjolras was about ready to strangle him when he suddenly jumped up. “I have an idea.”

“Okay?” Enjolras followed him over to the window, watching as Grantaire pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up, closer to the windowpane.

“Oh, I think...” Grantaire turned around. “Can you try to lift me up just a little bit?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. He certainly wouldn’t try that again. He just took the phone from Grantaire and held it up. “The reception is better back here.”

“Okay, quick, call someone... or text someone, just... do it quickly.”

“Who do you want me to call? Everyone is out somewhere tonight, they won’t–”

Grantaire tried to grab the phone, but couldn’t reach it. “I honestly don’t give a shit, call the fire department for all I care.”

Enjolras hesitated for a moment, because he definitely couldn’t just call the fire department, but–

“Enjolras, I swear to god... text Courfeyrac, he constantly checks his phone anyway and I bet at this point he’s already on his way home.”

“Alright,” Enjolras said, because that might actually work. He opened messages and found Courfeyrac right on top. His last message had been a string of kissy faces. Enjolras was about to select it when Grantaire grabbed his arm.

“Actually, maybe he went to Combeferre’s, because I bet he’s home too, and they’re, like, busy... you know, having a really wild cuddle session or something.” Grantaire tugged at his shirt. “We should try someone else instead.”

“I’m sure Courfeyrac won’t mind if we interrupt their cuddle session, since we’re stuck in a freaking storage room,” Enjolras said.

“No, but... I’m just saying, he might not check his phone after all. How about we try Cosette? She’s really reliable and all, you know her, I bet she’d get us out of here in no time.”

“What...” Enjolras trailed off, because he was starting to realize what this was all about. “What did you say?”

“I said Cosette might be a better choice?”

“No, I meant what did you say to Courfeyrac that you don’t want me to see?”

“Nothing, it’s not... this has nothing to do with you, I’m just trying to find the best option for us here. I don’t talk about you with Courfeyrac.”

“I never said anything about you talking about _me_.”

“Just text Cosette, okay?”

“Fine,” Enjolras said and scrolled down to find Cosette’s name. He’d barely tapped on it when the screen turned black. “Seriously?”

Grantaire pulled at Enjolras’ arm so he could get his phone back within reach, pushing random buttons when it was quite obvious that it was out of battery and wouldn’t turn back on, no matter how hard Grantaire tried. “Come on...”

“Don’t break it,” Enjolras muttered and pried the phone out of Grantaire’s hands. “Guess someone played too much Candy Crush.”

“Oh, of course, this is obviously my fault.”

“Well, we could have got out of here if you–”

“Give me a break,” Grantaire said. “Not everything is my fault all the time.”

“I’m just saying if you hadn’t been playing on your phone so much, someone might be on their way to get us out of here right now.” Enjolras felt silly even while he said it, but this whole thing was really starting to get to him and Grantaire’s smirking and eye-rolling didn’t make it any more pleasant.

“Well, that’s great Enjolras, really, great, the thing is, I can’t do anything about it, can I?” Grantaire said, arms folded across his chest. “I mean, you didn’t even _bring_ your phone, and I’m not standing here saying that that’s the reason we’re still stuck in here.”

Grantaire was right, of course he was right, but Enjolras just really wanted to get out of here. Technically, there were several people to blame for this in different ways, but finding someone to blame wasn’t helping them get out of here either.

“You always do that,” Grantaire went on, “you go around pretending that you’ve never done a single thing wrong in your entire life.”

“I don’t do that,” Enjolras spat. He wasn’t perfect and he knew that there were many things that he’d done wrong. He wasn’t above admitting that.

“Okay, so maybe you only do that when it comes to me.”

“Just like you turn everything into a joke?” Enjolras narrowed his eyes. “But no, you don’t actually do that around other people, just when you’re talking to me.”

Grantaire bit his lip and shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Is it just especially funny to piss me off? Is that it?”

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” Grantaire said, even though they both knew that that really wasn’t it and that Grantaire was just looking for an easy way out of this conversation. He always did that, he made some offhand comment and left. Except that Grantaire couldn’t leave right now, so he was just persistently staring at the wall.  

Enjolras huffed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“No, _you_ are ridiculous,” Grantaire said and poked at Enjolras’ chest.

Enjolras shoved Grantaire’s hand away. “Stop it.”

“Why?” Grantaire asked and poked him again, this time in the ribs, a smile playing around his lips. “You don’t like that?”

“No, as a matter of fact I...” Enjolras let out a quiet giggle when Grantaire did it again. He was awfully ticklish and  rantaire was pretty much the last person he’d wanted to find out about that. “Grantaire, come on.”

Grantaire grinned. “Oh, look at you, you’re ticklish.” Enjolras wasn’t sure if he hated how gleeful Grantaire looked or if he was glad that he wasn’t sulking anymore. “What about right here?”

This time Enjolras was prepared and caught Grantaire’s hand in his, trying to do the same to Grantaire while he wiggled away from Grantaire’s other hand. He was no match for Grantaire, though. Mainly because Grantaire didn’t seem to be ticklish at all and so Grantaire soon had him cornered against the wall.

“Gotcha,” Grantaire said, eyes twinkling. His face was only inches from Enjolras’, hand still caught in his. Enjolras definitely wasn’t breathing right now.

Then Grantaire blinked and suddenly took a step back. He seemed to have noticed that he was really close, but for some reason Enjolras’ brain decided that he didn’t want Grantaire to move away, so he leaned forward and his lips somehow ended up on Grantaire’s.

Grantaire made a surprised noise in the back of his throat, but did kiss him back for a second before he pulled away. “Whoa...”

“I’m...” Enjolras didn’t even know what to say, he didn’t know why he’d done that, all he knew was that he wanted to do it again. Grantaire looked a little freaked out, though, so that probably wasn’t going to happen. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re apologizing,” Grantaire said, shaking his head ever so slightly. “Of course you’d be apologizing.”

And now Grantaire was making fun of him. Great, just great. Maybe Enjolras could go hide in one of those boxes with a couple of ugly sweaters. “Well, I thought that’s what you do when you kiss someone who doesn’t want you to kiss them.”

“Wait, back up, when did I say that I didn’t?”

“I just assumed...” Enjolras tilted his head, trying to figure out what Grantaire was thinking. He still looked mildly confused. “You don’t look like you liked it?” Enjolras tried.

“To be honest, that kiss was a bit too quick for me to figure out if I liked it. Actually...” He took a step closer, his eyes never leaving Enjolras’. “The whole thing happened really fast,” he mumbled, hands coming to a rest at Enjolras’ sides. “Maybe we should give it another try?”

Enjolras only nodded and then Grantaire kissed him, slowly, arms now wrapped around him, while Enjolras’ fingers found their way into Grantaire’s curls. His brain had barely registered that Grantaire’s hair was really as soft as it looked when there was a loud bang outside the door.

Grantaire immediately jumped away from him. “What the fuck?”

Before Enjolras could answer there was another bag and the door swung open, the sales assistant from earlier staring at them with wide eyes. “Oh my god, I am so, _so_ sorry. Someone called because they said that seen people in the window and they were worried that someone was breaking in, but then I realized... I’m really sorry, the door gets stuck a lot and... Are you two alright?”

“We’re fine,” Enjolras said quickly.

“Although we are glad that we don’t have to spend the night in here after all.”

After twenty more minutes of apologies and both of them assuring her that they weren’t going to sue her and that it wasn’t a big deal, they had all the boxes stowed in Enjolras’ car and they were on their way.

“Well,” Enjolras muttered as he pulled out of the parking lot, “that was an interesting experience.”

“Interesting, yeah.” Grantaire laughed. “Well, um, what now?”

“The Musain’s closed, so I’ll just take all of this stuff home and bring it over tomorrow and I’ll... You weren’t talking about the clothes.”

“Not really.”

“Well, I...”

“It’s cool if you don’t–”

“Do you want to come back to my place?” Enjolras asked. “I think I still have some leftover takeout from last night and a frozen pizza.”

“Food sounds good,” Grantaire said. “Very good.”

“And maybe we can pick up where we left off earlier?”

Grantaire hummed. “We can definitely do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [writing blog](http://musains.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
